Category: cookies

  • Crisp maple shortbread cookies

    Crisp maple shortbread cookies

      The recipe for these gems comes from the latest issue of Chatelaine but you can also find them here. Unlike other more traditional shortbread recipes, these were just buttery enough, just light enough that you can eat more than a couple without feeling like you are going to keel over from the sheer weight…

  • Hazelnut-almond financiers redux

    Hazelnut-almond financiers redux

      I am a micromanager at the best of times and one of the ways that manifests itself is my obsessive checking of my blog stats. I can’t help but wonder – who keeps misspelling my surname as Nercessian to come to this blog? And who are the readers in Afghanistan? Also, are financiers molds…

  • Cook’s Illustrated perfect chocolate chip cookies

    Cook’s Illustrated perfect chocolate chip cookies

      A few days ago it was a miserably rainy day and all I could think about was whipping up a batch of warm, gooey, chewy, chocolate chip cookies. Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles my son actually sat in his high chair long enough for me to make these cookies and bake them (all…

  • Easy chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies

    Easy chocolate-dipped peanut butter cookies

      I’ve been making these cookies for a long time, but it wasn’t until recently that I thought maybe I should blog about them. It can’t get any simpler than this. Do you have a jar of peanut butter in your pantry? Good. An egg and some sugar? Great. Now all you need to do…

  • David Lebovitz’s chocolate chip cookies

    David Lebovitz’s chocolate chip cookies

      When my craving hit, it was sudden and strong. I wanted a chocolate chip cookie. But not just any run-of-the-mill chocolate chip cookie, a homemade one with dark chocolate chips that was slightly gooey and chewy on the inside. Some of my readers may or not remember my day job (at least when I…

  • French pastries day 2: Guimauves and madeleines

    French pastries day 2: Guimauves and madeleines

      Day two of my French pastries course at the Bonnie Gordon school started quietly enough. We were to finish decorating the macarons we made the day before, and we were to bake the canelés batter sitting in the fridge. But in the middle of our demo on guimauves, I realized what I dismissed as…

  • French pastries course day 1: Macarons and canelés

    French pastries course day 1: Macarons and canelés

      You’ve heard me say it a kajabillion times so I won’t draw this out for too long. I love macarons. But try as I might, I was unable to reproduce these heavenly confections in my own oven. So when Toronto’s Bonnie Gordon’s School of Confectionary Arts offered a two-day French pastries course teaching how…

  • Raspberry Chocolate Chip Rugelach

    Raspberry Chocolate Chip Rugelach

      In theory, the recipe for Raspberry Chocolate Chip Ruggies sounded ideal: indulgent, versatile, and widely popular. After all, who can fault the raspberry-chocolate combination? Indeed, whoever sampled these cookies had nothing but complimentary words for me, but at the end of the day — and even several days afterwards — I am disappointed. But…

  • Picture-perfect palmiers

    Picture-perfect palmiers

      Palmiers are elegant, delicious and surprisingly easy to make. Named in French for their resemblance to palm fronds, they are also known as elephant ears or butterfly wings. I made classic palmiers, and also cinnamon-flavoured ones, from one box of puff pastry. I used the recipe from “The Art and Soul of Baking” for…

  • Glittering lemon sandwich cookies

    Glittering lemon sandwich cookies

    Never judge a book by its cover, right? Wrong. Of course I do, and I am a voracious reader at that. So it’s without any qualms whatsoever that I admit I made these cookies purely for shallow reasons. They look pretty and I wanted to see if I could replicate this recipe from Gourmet magazine.…